Part of the law change was to repeal the city's 27 year old ban on pit bulls -- and this is the part of the law that has gotten the most attention -- from the media headlines to the public commentary.

But I think the focus of all of the attention on "pit bulls" has done a major disservice to the public commentary about public safety and effective animal control legislation, and that's too bad.

In the world of striving to be first with the news, and 7 second sound bites, a deep dive into the ordinance isn't something that is really getting done, well, anyway. But there were a lot of great provisions in this law, most designed to increase public safety, and all of that has gotten lost in the chatter about the BSL repeal. Below are some of the provisions that will make life better for animals in Roeland Park, and make the community safer:

2) A solid definition and restriction of "Dangerous animals" (regardless of breed) - as an animal that bites or injures a person or domestic animal.

3) A separate definition of "Vicious animals".

4) It allows members of the community to institute TNR for cats. Previously the city was paying for animal control enforcement to pick up cats and paying a daily hold fee at their shelter for feral cats. The city will no longer incur those costs.

5) Adding an entire section on tethering within the definition of animal cruelty -- including attaching chains directly to dogs without a proper collar, continuously tethering a dog for more than 1 hour, and the use of a chain, leash, rope, collaring device or tether that weighs more than 1/8 of the animal's body weight or is so heavy to inhibit free movement within the tethering area, or the tethering the dog in a manner that could cause injury, strangulation or entanglement.

I think when you look at the laws that were added, I think they do a particularly good job of INCREASING the ability of the public to protect themselves from potentially dangerous dogs -- regardless of breed or appearance. Also, the definitions of tethering within the cruelty section allow for dogs to be removed from a cruel tethering situation before a toddler unwittingly walks up to the dog -- which also increases public safety.

I think when you look at these provisions, it allows residents take a proactive response to potentially dangerous dog situation and irresponsible owners before a major incident occurs. It allows for them to take proactive steps regardless of the breed, or appearance of the dog. It also still allows them to target 'pit bulls' (or Chows, or Labradors) that might be potentially dangerous based on their actions -- without wasting resources on dogs or owners that are not a threat to the public.

It's a complete win/win.

Roeland Park is a small community, and a relatively safe one. But I suspect the new ordinance will continue to increase the quality of life for its residents. Several members of the city council and the community spent nearly a year working on this legislation and I really wish more of the focus would have been on the thoroughness and well-thought out nature of the changes, and not just solely on the pit bull ban getting repealed.

Yes, I'm happy about the ban being repealed. It needed to happen. I just wish the importance of the other elements hadn't gotten missed.

I really feel that if the changes had been fully explained by the media it could have opened up a far better dialogue on public safety, and what leads to animals being aggressive and a public safety risk. And it's disappointing that the opportunity was missed.

Equal Time

There is one other unfortunate thing that has come out of the media follow up is the need to cover "both sides" of the issue vs telling the story of what really happened at the public debate.

One example is from Fox 4. While their worst report isn't available online, they have several segments that are (I'm a bit forgiving of the Monday night newscasts for all the stations as the final vote happened about 20 minutes before they went on air).

In the Fox 4 report, they noted that while many people supported the repeal of the pit bull ban, "others were outraged at the decision". They interviewed one person who spoke in favor of the repeal. And one who opposed. Both sides represented. Fair. Balanced.

But here's the deal. The person they interviewed in opposition to the repeal was the ONLY citizen who testified against the repeal. At the meeting which housed the final vote, there were 13 people who stood up and testified in favor of the repeal. People who testified in favor of the repeal included 9 residents, a couple of animal welfare professionals, the director of the shelter that handles the city's animal control contract, a person who moved from the city because her dog was determined to be a pit bull, and the certified dog trainer who handles dog training classes at the city community center.

Only one person favored keeping the ban.

In an earlier testimony on the ordinance in November, 20 people testified in favor of the repeal. Only 3 opposed it (including the same individual who opposed it Monday night).

Councilwoman Megan England noted that she was "saddened and disappointed" in the council for approving an 11th hour amendment that would prohibit ownership of more than 1 pit bull without a permit until 2018. "Shame on us for thinking this was a controversial ordinance. We don't usually have this many people for an issue and it not be controversial...." noting that almost everyone who testified at both meetings and resident emails favored the change.

It just seems that in an effort to show "both sides" of the issue that the media missed the story about how the public forum was clearly and exceptionally one-sided, in total numbers, and in the expertise of those who presented.

And maybe in an effort to give "equal time" the media failed to give the public a clear picture of how overwhelmingly supported the new legislation was.

Congrats to the community of Roeland Park. You got it right. I just hope others can see that what was right about this went far beyond the breed ban repeal, and really is good for animals and humans in the community.

July 24, 2014

Back in June, a woman and her dog were unfortunately attacked by an unconstrained dog in Wausau, WI. Her dog, a chihuahua, unfortunatelyl was killed in the attack.

Because the dog was classified as a "pit bull", hysteria of the moment set in and the woman requested that the city of Wausau consider banning pit bulls from the community.

Fortunately, Lisa Rasmussen, the chairwoman of the Wausau Public Health & Safety Committee said the city will not pursue breed-specific action.

Unfortunately, that hasn't kept Andy Davis of the Wausau Daily Herald from trying to stir the pot with a bit of made-up hysterics.

On Sunday, Davis wrote an article for the Herald entitled "Pit-bull bans controversial, but they work" in what appears to either be a failed attempt at journalism, or a successful attempt at stirring up controversy, attention and page views to the newspaper. But from a journalistic standpoint, the article completely fails at the ability to understand basic math, statistics, or honesty or integrity.

In the article, Davis compares Wausua (which has breed-neutral legislation) with neighboring communities such as Antigo and Greenwood -- which have bans on 'pit bulls'.

For both Antigo and Greenwood, both passed bans 20 years ago. In neither case was there any incident that sparked the ban, but both passed bans anyway. So, in the time they've had the ban they have gone from having no pit bull problem to continuing to have no pit bull problem.

But Davis says that the bans are successful because authorities in both communities say there have been no major incidents and thus, they feel the bans are working -- which compared to the one incident in Wausua, somehow makes Wausua's breed neutral approach (which is favored by all experts organizations) worse. Except, it's not.

There is one major thing that Davis completely failed to mention in his article: the size differential of the communities.

Greenwood: Population 1,000

Antigo: Population 8,000

Wausau: Population 39,000

Um, yeah, so based on size alone any type of incident is 4x more likely in Wausau than in the other two communities combined.

So, through the power of the interwebs, I filed a couple of freedom of Information Requests and gathered the following dog bite data for the three communities. Note that none of the communities track bite cases by severity. Over the past 18+ months (Jan 1, 2013 - July 23, 2014) here are the number of dog bites in each community:

Greenwood: 1 (so exactly 1 bite per 1,000 people in the community)

Antigo: 31 ( 3.9 bites per 1,000 people)

Wausau: 64 (1.6 bites per 1,000 people)

So if you look at the "success" of the Antigo ordinance, you'll note that you are 2.5x more likely to be bitten by a dog in Antigo (per capita) than you are in Wausau. This is Mr. Davis' success story?

And yes, while I agree there is a difference between a "Bite" and an "attack", it's worth noting that the vast majority of bites are quite minor, with less than 20% of them requiring any medical attention at all and less than 1% being anything that would qualify as even close to "severe". And severity is often a measure of the size (not breed) of the dog and the vulnerability of the victim -- whether that's an elderly adult, young child, or in Wausau's case, a tiny Chihuahua.

In this case it appears that Davis simply either ignored the actual statistics, and ignored the impact the dramatic community size difference would have in the likelihood of an attack, and tried to make a compelling story and headline to create controversy and sell newspapers.

June 26, 2014

This is a weird story. A long story. And it's hard to really decide where it starts. Or if it's really ended. There are more than enough villains to go around. And victims. But we're going to try to make some sense of this as three stories merged into one bizarre news story this week.

Let's start with Merritt Clifton

Long-time readers of this blog are familiar with Merritt Clifton. Few people have spent more time in their lives trying to villify pit bulls than Clifton.

For 30 years, Clifton has claimed to track the number of fatal dog attacks, and "Maimings" and "Maulings" from dogs. Clifton has never made his list of these attacks public (he no doubt is aware it would never withstand public scrutiny). The list is compiled 100% from media reports, which already subjects it to media bias wherein news outlets determine the relative news value of similar stories differently depending on the perceived breed of dog involved.

Over the years, I, and many others, have found many snafu's in Clifton's information.

-- He's misrepresented insurance information to try to show that breed ban pre-emption laws lead to more insurance claims (when, in fact, population of dogs and people is the largest influencer, it just so happens that the six most populous states in the US also have pre-emptions on breed bans).

Anyone who would take even just a few minutes to scrutinize Clifton's data would find its credibility severely lacking.

Information Availability

The single most likely factor in this dramatic rise in Clifton's numbers is the availability of information. Clifton started his infamous data collection in 1982. At the time there were 3 networks. There was no internet. While some data would not doubt be collected from Lexus/Nexus searches and scrolling through rolls of microfilm, having spent my college career writing papers this way makes it very apparent that even if the media decided to report dog attacks, it would have been virtually impossible to gather information on all of them.

Enter the 1990s, and you find cable news networks, 24/7 news cycles, etc, and no doubt the amount of time dedicated to news increased. Then, by 2000, the Internet was completely ubiquitous. Now, anyone can type in "dog attacks" into a Google News searh and get a complete run-down of the day's news stories from around the globe. The searches include print and broadcast media, as well as a host of online only news services and citizen journalism sources -- many of which didn't exist even 5 years ago. It would make sense that the number of discovered news stories about dog attacks (very different from the number of actual dog attacks) would have grown substantially. We have access to so much more information, right from our own laptops, than we've ever had before even at the best research libraries.

Clifton completely denies this reality.

When it comes to access to information, one other thing has changed dramatically -- and that is the amount and TYPE of information that is available.

Prior to 2006, if a news story happened, you pretty much found out about the story exactly what the media reported in the study. That was about it. However, by 2009, more than 84 million US Citizens were on Facebook. By 2013, that number is up to 152 million. And there seems to be no limit to the amount of information that can be gleened from it.

So, with this new data source, there has become an interesting (and disturbing) trend. Now, when a fatal dog attack occurs, the minions at dogsbite.org's facebook page start trolling the facebook profiles of the people in question. They get pictures of the people. Their significant others. Their kids. The house. The Neighbor's House. It's just flat creepy.

Along with that information is often the information about the dog. There is a picture. And a picture of the owner with the dog. Maybe information about the name of the breeder where they got the dog. Or the rescue organization. Or whatever. And then I've seen the minions, like pirahna on their prey, attack the web & facebook pages. I've seen many pages just shut themselves down completely.

And all of this was information that was virtually inaccessable until 2008 or so. And now, it's all available to anyone who is intersted in diving in.

This brings me back to Merritt Clifton

For the past couple of weeks, Merritt Clifton has one again been using his faulty "data", but this time to villify shelters and shelter dogs.

Last week, Clifton posted a report on the increase in the number of dogs that originate from shelters involved in dog attacks since 1982. Now remember, in 1982, the only information available to Clifton would have been what he found on microfilm, and what the reporter and editor decided to include.

However, now, Clifton is able to note a significant increase in the number of US Shelter dogs involved in fatal dog attacks since 2009 -- amazingly, when the availability of the information on where people got their pet became more accessible. The numbers are not reflecting a huge increase in shelter dogs being involved in attacks -- it's reflecting the amount of information that is actually AVAILABLE for him to garner that type of information.

In the final paragraph of that article, Clifton notes that "35 shelter dogs have participated in killing people since 2010". This data point appears to be a very cognitive effort to a) fear monger by making this number seem really high, b) try to cast doubt on shelter directors who adopt out pets and c) to make shelter pets seems unsafe.

However, again, upon further scrutiny, it turns out that "35" (assuming it's true, which at this point, is a lot to assume) is roughly 20% of the dog bite related fatalities during that time. When you then note that 30% of dog owners get their pets from shelters, you realize that not only are shelter dogs extremely safe (as are all dogs), but their adopters seem to be more responsible by putting the dogs in tragic situations at a lower rate than non-adopters.

So shelter pets remain an extremely viable option for people in spite of Clifton's fear-mongering.

But it gets worse.

Late last week, Time Magazine released what was the worst piece of "journalism" I've read in years regarding a 3 year old girl, who was attacked by three dogs, and then supposedly asked to leave a KFC because patrons thought she was too "scary" to be there.

In the piece, the Time writer, Charlotte Alter, quotes almost exclusively from Merritt Clifton and Dogsbite.org about the this mythical increase in dog attacks, and particularly tageting pit bulls. In it, they run a new chart based on Clifton's data.

In it Clifton completely fails to recognize that his data is biased based on media bias and availability bias. It's also likely further pronounced because the media bias is now such that clicks, and click throughs matter for determining what stories get published.

And similar to how the dogsbite.org minions handle their affairs on facebook, the glob on to any story involving a pit bull and copy/paste comment after comment to drive up traffic and SEO for the site....

However, Clifton takes it one step further. And blames the increase in pit bull bites on the animal welfare community. Says Clifton:

"The Graphic...starkly illustrated the rising number of pit bull attacks since the Michael Vick dogfighting case caused the Best Friends Animal Society and ASPCA, among others to ramp up advocacy."

So now, Clifton has decided to ignore the complete failures of his own data and take on most progressive animal welfare groups in this country by blaming them (not his own data gathering) for the miraculous increase. And also completely fails to recognize that correlation does not equal causation -- and just because the timing of two events correlate, doesn't mean that one caused the other.

But if Clifton wants to try to draw faulty correlation = causation conclusions based on no evidence of true cause and effecthe may want to be careful, because there is another interesting correlation that is more likely to have had a causal impact....as I have taken a littler liberty with Clifton's chart on the left.

I think a more likely argument could be made that the driving force in the increase in discovered dog bites is the presence of Colleen Lynn, the founder of dogsbite.org, which came online the same year as Mike Vick was convicted.

Let me be clear, Lynn, has no knowledge or expertise in dogs, or dog behavior. She is 100% biased against pit bulls in everything she does and her only experience with dogs is having been bitten by one. However, Lynn, as a web developer is web savvy, and good at gathering information and not doubt helped Clifton in his information gathering.

She has also become an active voice in the 'pit bull debate' that creates the media's favorite need for two sides to every store (even if one side is filled with experts, and the other side only contains Clifton and Lynn) and encouraged them to write more stories.

She has also filled the debate with mounds of nonsense that makes the situation more confusing for pet owners -- making the debate about "breed" instead of about owner responsibility and canine/human behavior -- instead of taking an expert-led community approach.

And, as an added bonus, Lynn and her minions are great at filling up comments pages on these articles to "reward" the media outlets for the articles, ensuring further media bias in the types of storiesthey choose to cover.

It's actually pretty obvious where the problem is, and it's not what Merritt Clifton wants to blame and it's certainly not the organizations that are working to save the lives of these animals.

Time Magazine

I would be a bit remiss if I didn't say a little something about the article in Time Magazine. In all honesty, I'm completely embarrassed for Time. For starters, the article is based on a completely inaccurate premise of a girl being kicked out of the KFC (which turned out to be a hoax). It is one thing for a local media outlet to pick up a story based only on the supposed victim's facebook post and no verification from anyone at KFC or that was visiting that KFC. It's quite another for Time magazine to fall to such a standard.

Then, to basically run the anti-pit bull article based on the reports of Clifton and Colleen Lynn with little to no communication with the bevy of experts and science on the opposing side. Heck, they could have done better research had just read the article that had appeared in their own magazine over the past 3 years, including: The Softer Side of Pit Bulls, and Can Attack Dogs be Rehabilitated. Apparently Ms. Alter does even read the magazine she works for.

So from an incorrect premise, to citing the least credible of sources, the Time article is an epic fail in news journalism, and it's a shame they've sunk to such a standard in the hope of keeping up with Buzz Feed for internet clicks (but hey, at least Time may get a mention in the next Buzz Feed List, "The worst researched news stories of all time").

March 12, 2014

The article was balanced -- but as with many cases with balanced reporting, the data actually is very heavily weighted to one side over the other - ie, just because two people disagree on something doesn't mean they're equally qualified to that opinion.

But as with any story, that tries to cover a large topic in a short story, there were some interesting "wow, if only you'd dug here a bit more" moments, so with that, and thus, a truth, two mistruths, an important factor and a telling quote from this AP story.

The Truth

The headline to the story is an absolute thruth. Pit bull laws, and the reputation of pit bulls IS, indeed, softening.

We're not there yet -- but we are making great progress.

Currently, there are 16 states that prohibit laws targeting specific breeds of dogs -- with four of those states (Rhode Island, Nevada, Connecticut and Massachussetts) passing their law just in the past 16 months.

Unfortunately, in the effort to portray two sides to a story, they interviewed three people who supported breed restrictions -- and along with that, came some mis-represented information. One of the people quoted was Don Bauermeister (misidentified as "Burmeister" in the article). Bauermeister is the assistant city attorney in Council Bluffs -- and ends up doing a lot of media appearances as one of only, to my count 8, public figures who support breed-specific policies. The mistruths then come out of this quote, not directly from Bauermeister himself, but by the writer of the article summing up what he was told by Bauermeister:

"After the Council Bluffs ban went into place, the number of pit bull attacks that resulted in hospitalization plummeted from 29 in 2004 to zero in the past few years - proof, Bauermeister said that breed-specific bans work."

Except, well, a little fact checking would show that the "facts" stated above are indeed, not true. However, according to information received by Animal Farm Foundation, the Iowa Health Department reports that in 2004 Pottawattamie County, IA (where Council Bluffs is located) had three or fewer hospitalizations due to dog bites in the entire county that year.

So, while the article states that 29 people were hospitalized from "pit bull attacks" in Council Bluffs in 2004, the actual statistical data indicates that in the county (1/3 of the population of which is not in Council Bluffs) is was three or fewer. And that's not from pit bulls. That's bites from ALL dogs in Pottawattamie County. Breed of dog involved in those incidents is unknown.

It's also specifically worth noting that total number of dog bites in Council Bluffs has also not decreased. Here are the total number of dog bites in Council Bluffs over the past 10 years:

2002 -- 97

2003 -- 85

2004 - 131

2005 - (the year the ban passed): 115

2006 - 132

2007 - 98

2008 - 98

2009 - 97

2010 - 97

2011 - 85

So, essentially, outside of three outlier years in 2004-2006 (one each before and after the ban year), the numbers have remained remarkably consistent over the past decade. So when actual data is analyzed, there is actually no evidence that the ban has made their community safer.

An Important Factor

The story also talked to Jeffery Borchardt. Borchardt too has become a voice for the anti-pit bull movement after his son was tragically killed by two dogs owned by his 14 month old son's baby sitter. The dogs were specifically brother and sister, although one was labeled as a "boxer mix" and the other a "pit bull mix". I sympathize with Mr. Borchardt and the tragedy his family has endured. While, by all accounts the dogs were well cared for (as is noted in this AP story) there is one important item that showed up on the police report that the media outlets have completely failed to ever mention.

According to the full police report, the babysitter notes that she obtained the two dogs at 3 weeks of age. Apparently the mother for the puppies was not producing enough milk and thus, the dogs were removed from the litter at 3 weeks.

Anyone who is a breeder, or a dog trainer, handler or has read any science, will tell you that this is a recipe for trouble. The science suggests that removing dogs from their litters too early can create a host of negative behaviors including high reactivity to noises, fearfulness, possessive tendencies, attention-seeking, and aggression. While this can be overcome, it is very challenging to do and takes someone with a very high level of skill and diligence to do. This would be especially true for pups that were removed at such an extremely young age.

It's just frustrating that this fact, which was likely a causal factor in the incident involving Mr. Borchardt's son has been virtually ignored and that the incident hasn't been used as a platform to provide more awareness of the importance of early socialization for young dogs and the importance of keeping litters in tact until at least 8 weeks of age.

A quote

My final piece of this is going to be a quote -- this one specifically attributed to Mr. Bauermeister. Again, Bauermeister is one of only about 8 figures publically in favor of laws targeting breeds, and I think this quote gives you a little insight into one of the leaders of this movement. In the article, it says:

"The opposition to pit bulls bans, Bauermeister added, is a sign that many American pet owners have lost touch with reality. 'Fifty years ago, you could take a sick animal behind a barn and put it out of it's misery,' he said. "That's just the way it was done. Now they investigate you for doing that. The emotional irrationality of Americans and their dogs has never been worse than it is today."

Nothing will get people on your side faster than telling them about how irrational they are for not wanting people taking their dogs behind the barn and shooting them.

While the movement to oppose laws targeting specific breeds is being led by national organizations of dog trainers, and veterinarians, shelter workers, of animal control officers, etc, one of the leaders of the "ban them" movement is calling people "irrational" and "out of touch" for not wanting dogs to be shot behind the barn.

This should give a little insight to the two sides of the story. Is America listening?

So far, at least 2 of the city's 10 city council members (Barb Cleland and Renie Peterson) have spoken out in favor of a repeal.

In response to the movement to repeal, the Denver Post wrote an editorial speaking out against the move to repeal. In it they note:

"Since Aurora instituted a pit bull ban in 2006, the number of bites attributed to restricted breeds has gone down from several dozen to just a few a year. So the logical move would be to....recind the city's breed bans? No, it doesn't make sense to us either."

Errors of omission are common. It's a way to provide an accurate data-point to support your point of view and then brush past all of the data that completely opposes your viewpoint.

In this case, there is a pretty major error of omission.

Here is the reason Aurora is considering a repeal of its breed ban: It's failing.

If you look at the TOTAL number of dog bites in the community, they are actually INCREASING. And increasing at an alarming rate. From 2006 (when the ban was passed) to 2010, Aurora actually saw a 67% increaese in the total number of dog bites -- a number that based on news reports continues to grow. While the number of bites by "restricted" breeds has decreased, it has come at the expense of a 71% increase in bites by non-restricted breeds (which always made up 80-85% of bites in the community in the first place).

That's right. 1158 dogs killed and an increase in dog bites. Everyone should be livid that this has gone on for as long as it has.

So it is this error of omission that the Denver Post is guilty of in trying to persuade public opinion that the ban in Aurora is a good idea. It's such a major error that might make one ask: why would they make such a glaring omission?

My guess is that they realize that Aurora repealing its ban would put even more pressure on Denver to repeal its ban. Denver continues to stubbornly holds onto even though they have a higher a hospitalization rate (per capita) from dog bites than other communities in Colorado, they've suffered a long series of court legal battles over the ban at taxpayer expense, and overall have seen their pit bull ban fail also.

Was the intent to raise dog bites in the city? Was the intent to wholesale slaughter more than 1100 dogs at taxpayer expense? If that's their intent, they should all be fired.

People defending them might note that the law was only intended to impact pit bulls, and not the other 85% of the bites in the community. And of course, if you wholesale slaughter ever pit bull in a community, you'll have fewer bites by pit bulls because you'd killed them all.

But here's the deal: there are opportunity costs for enforcement. Every time an animal control officer spends time, money and effort to round up and kill an innocent pit bull, that same officer is not spending that same time on stray or aggressive dogs of other breeds. Meanwhile, as negligent dog owners replace their pit bulls with another type of dog, bites by those breeds go up because you didn't solve the actual problem of irresponsible and reckless dog ownership. This happens EVERY.SINGLE. TIME. a city passes a breed ban: see Sioux City, Council Bluffs & Omaha as prime examples.

January 17, 2014

Earlier this week, I posted a report from an advisory group from an advisory group that was appointed by the Bonner Springs, KS City Council. In the report, they provided a very detailed explanation as to why they unanimously favored repealing the city's 24 year old breed ban.

One of the things they noted was that there seemed to be very little support for breed bans -- and that said support was based off of websites that relied solely on media reports for their data. I'm going to post their statements again:

"The research for articles and statistics presented difficulties as the majority were anti Breed Specific Ordinances. The few that were in favor of BSOs generally justified their positions with statistical data generated by dogsbite.org. Research of this website found the data to be extremely distorted with many myths presented as facts....because no one, including the CDC, maintains statistics of attacks by breed, the party who maintains the website gathers statistics based on a review of newspaper articles for reports of dog attacks. This method would not be embraced by any statistician, as this would lead to greatly skewed and inaccurate results."

I was glad to see this called out, as this is true of dogsbite.org and is even more true in the absurd Merrit Clifton Report. Both rely entirely on news reports to compile data, that they misinterpret statistics. They're not.

To demonstrate this, I thought I'd share an example from a completely unrelated area that a came across a few weeks ago.

Apparently, Slate was working on a report on gun violence in the United States and was calling on media reports to gather data. However, when they were done, they realized that their database of people killed by guns was roughly 1/3 of the CDC count of the number of people killled by guns.

Why the discrepency? Turns out, it's suicides. That because the media seldom reports suicides (I think the rationale is justified BTW) basing analysis of gun deaths based on media reports showed a completely distorted view of gun violence in America. Here are a couple of charts from Marginal Revolution:

The Media’s Picture of Gun Violence (suicides in red)

The CDC’s Picture of Gun Violence (suicides in red)

As you can see, the media reporting in this case is neither a comprehensive portrayal of gun violence in America, nor is it a statistically representative sample. In fact, statistically, it's entirely misleading.

The same is true for dog bites of course. The media doesn't attempt to cover every dog bite that happens in this country (nor should it), nor does it necessarily attempt to cover every major dog bite in this country. There is even evidence to suggest the media doesn't even cover every fatal dog attack.

And then there are the ridiculous stories like this one about a child that was "attacked" by a pit bull. You can see the child's devastating injury from the "attack" at the left (click to enlarge). (Thanks Dog Hero for pointing me to the story).

I think we could all agree that if the media reported ever dog bite story that was equal to severity to this one we'd get very little accomplished on our local newscasts.

This, and others, highlight exactly why anyone who forms their opinions on dangerous dog policies based on media reports (or based on the opinion of anyone who does) is destined to be making an inaccurate conclusion based on data that is neither comprehensive nor a statistically representative sample.

November 15, 2013

On Monday, our local NPR station ran a little feature on their daily radio program "Central Standard" about Breed Specific Legislation entitled "Bully Breeds in the Kansas City Metro". It's about a 40 minute long segment.

As a part of the program, they brought on two 'experts' -- each representing a different side of the argument for and against pit bulls and breed bans.

For the "Pro ban" argument, they interviewed Don Bauermeister -- the Assistant City Attorney from Council Bluffs, IA who has been involved with dogsbite.org for quite some time. For the other side, they interviewed Anthony Barnett. I'm not going to begin to go over Anthony's resume, and in full disclosure, Anthony and I are good friends, but I will note that through a variety of Anthony's experiences in working with school kids on dog safety, with service dogs, shelter dogs, and doing police work with SWAT, I have found Anthony to be one of the more knowledgable people out there in terms of canine behavior.

One of the things that continued to strike me over the course of this segment was how annoying it is that the two sides on this conversation got equal time. One of the common misnomers of journalism is that it should provide "equal time" to "both sides" of a debate. While it is true, Journalists should always seek different points of view, or angles of a story, it also has a moral obligation to seek truth. And sometimes the two "sides" are not equally represented. Thus is the case with Breed-Specific Laws.

I think we can start with this reality. On the "BSL is not the right approach" side, KCUR was able to find a local expert. There are a lot of folks here that could have done a very good job with this interview, and would have shared much of the same information that Anthony shared on the radio -- and all would have had a fairly similar point of view.

Meanwhile, for the ban pit bulls side, they had to go to Iowa to find someone to speak. Kansas City straddles a state line, you'd think somehow they'd find a leading "expert" in a two state area to speak on that side, but there weren't any. So they had to go to Iowa to find someone to speak on the matter. That should be your first clue. Bauermeister's arguments seemed indicative of someone who got their canine behavior knowledge off the internet instead of having actually worked with dogs.

The interview took a lot of interesting turns. So in this post, I'm going to give a few highlights from the interview, clarify a few mistruths spoken by Mr. Bauermeister, and add onto a couple of the things I wish had gotten said.

Don Bauermeister

- Bauermeister starts off by trying to articulate what a "bully breed" is. It's important that he notes that the definition of bully breeds varies from city to city and jurisdiction to jurisdiction based on whoever is writing it. This is part of the reason the laws are nearly impossible to enforce because the definition is very vague. He notes that in his own community it is a "majority of the characteristics" of being a pit bull as designated by 3 different sets of breed standards by the AKC and UKC. I think the ability to determine "majority" based on three different sets of breed standards is setting up virutally any type of dog to being included. Anthony did a nice job of pointing out that they seem to only recognize the breed standards based on appearances, but completely ignored the behavior standards which is contradictory.

- The host noted that according to the KC Police Department, the breed they most encounter in their bite reports were German Shepherds (actually the type of dog Bauermeister owns) and not pit bulls. Bauermeister then decided he'd "go out on a limb and guess" that it was because there were more German Shepherds in Kansas City, MO than pit bulls and that higher number of bites happen with breeds that are most common. It's pretty clear from this statement that Bauermeister has never been to Kansas City. As someone who lives in KC, and helps manage the KC shelter, it is pretty obvious that Pit Bulls outnumber German Shepherds, based on what I see on the streets and in the shelter by at least 5 to 1. I mean, it's not close. But Bauermeister ventures a completely uneducated guess to try to justify his position. This is what happens when you have to rely on out-of-state "experts" -- who seem completely content making up data to support their pre-conceived opinion.

I also think it's interesting that Bauermeister used the term "proportionality" in noting that certain types of dogs have higher number of bites than others because they're more popular, and yet completely dismisses how this plays a role in 'pit bulls' being attributed to bite incidents given that the popularity of pit bulls in the US has grown 47% over the past 10 years, and one of the top 3 breeds in 47 of the 50 US States (and this gets even larger if you cast a very wide definition of pit bull like Bauermeister does). In his statements, Bauermeister continued to cling to the myth that 'pit bulls' make up less than 5% of all dogs -- a statement that hasn't resembled truth for more than a decade.

-- Bauermeister also noted that a lot of cities were currently looking toward Mandatory Spay/Neuter laws for pit bulls. It's interesting that he'd mention that as Kansas City was one of the first places to pass Breed-specific Mandatory Spay/Neuter. The law has had zero impact on public safety in our community.

-- Then, in a truly bizarre exchange, Bauermeister went into considerable detail about how his German Shepherds would go about protecting his property and the series of warning signals they would give before they bite. Instead of using this as an opportunity to educate people on dog behavior, dog warning signals and reading behavior, Bauermeister then went on to say that 'pit bulls" don't exhibit these warnings signs and attack without warning noting that "this is second nature, everybody knows this. It's documented in the writings."

The quote here, to the best I can tell, is originally attributed to Randall Lockwood -- who made the statement in 1986 or 1987 during the height of the dog fighting controversy when he worked for HSUS. At the time, HSUS was trying to create additional fear about pit bulls and dog fighting in order to help them in their fundraising efforts to help combat dog fighting. The statement has been recirculated "in all the writings" of people like Bauermeister, Dogsbite.org and Kory Nelson for decades. However, the factual accuracy of the statement has been debunked by virtually every dog traininer, handler and behaviorist in the nation in the 25 years since, and even Lockwood himself has noted that he wished he'd never said it because it was untrue and had been misused.

- Then, in maybe the most bizarre part of the show, the host of the show goes on to ask Buaermeister why he thinks it is that 17 states have now PROHIBITED breed specific laws. Bauermeister then goes onto talk about what he calls "The pit bull propaganda machine" and about how this "well-oiled machine" which is "possibly funded by dog fighters" is responsible for this. He even specifically implicated the AKC as being funded by dogfighters.

Um, ok. Hysterical much?

In Anthony's commentary, he notes the famous line by Menken "For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple and wrong".

In this case, the 'solution' to combat the problem of dog bites by targeting specific breeds is simple-minded, and wrong.

Breed specific laws are opposed by virtually every one involved in a professional field associated with canines. The National Animal Control Association, AVMA, multiple dog training groups, HSUS, ASPCA, Best Friends Animal Society, No Kill Advocacy Center, American Kennel Club etc ALL oppose breed-specific laws. It's important to note that many of these organizations spend a fair amount of time disagreeing with each other, but the fact that they all agree that targeting breeds is ineffective is notable. And the idea that dog fighters are funding their efforts (particularly when several of the groups actively seek out opportunities to fight against dog fighting) is, well, just laughable. If you have to make up a conspiracy theory (based on absolutely zero evidence) to support your viewpoint, maybe you should change your opinion.

- Later in the show, the host asked Bauermeister if he thought breed bans created a false sense of security. Bauermeister of course disagreed and pointed to how his own community, Council Bluffs, IA had virtually eliminated pit bull bites. Yes, if you exterminate an entire type of dog in your community, you will be fairly successful in eliminating bites by that type of dog.

However, if Bauermeister were being honest, he would note that overall public safety has not improved in the communities he's impacted. In Council Bluffs, total dog bites increased when they passed their ban in 2004 -- what changed was the breeds involved and all of a sudden people were getting bitten more by "Labs" and "Boxers" than "pit bulls". In Omaha(a neighboring community to Council Bluffs), dog bites have also gone up considerably after passing their breed-specific restrictions -- and the flippant "but they're bites and not attacks" argument has also been exposed as severe bites have not declined. Bauermeister has also acknowledged online that he is in contact with city officials in Sioux City, IA (who also has a ban), and was even laughing "lol" when a story came out about Sioux City's bite numbers increasing when they passed a ban also.

Let's set the record straight. Breed bans are an ineffective means of trying to control dog bites. All three communities Bauermeister has been involved with have proven that. Behavior based laws CAN be proactive when they allow authorities to put restrictions on dogs (and dog owners) who show themselves (through behavior) to need these restrictions -- such as their dog acting aggressively, roaming at large consistently, etc. These are, in fact, the type of laws that all of the national organizations with expertise support.

It is important for the media, and for politicians, to consider their sources. It only makes sense that when it comes to dog laws, that you would consult the experts in the canine training field, veterinary field, shelters, breeders, animal control officers etc. Why would you not? And when it comes to the media, they have an obligation to seek truth -- which does not mean giving equal time to people who are pushing fringe agendas just beause they're the only ones out there supporting another side.

January 17, 2013

In my mind, it used to be that statistics were based on data. Data existed, and you extrapolated statistics from that data.

In the world of the internet, everyone has a voice. And while generally that's a good thing, sometimes that privilage is abused andthat voice comes with the amazing ability (and willingness) of some people to make up data and statistics.

Some of these are commonly used. They've been passed down for years by rescuers in the same way that urban legends are passed down. Most people don't mean to be malicious with their false statistics, but that still doesn't make them true.

But some people ARE malicious with their claims -- and those claims can also be just as made up. A couple of weeks ago a lawyer's blog popped up in my news feed. In it was yet another "statistic" that if someone thought about it for even a minute they would realize couldn't possibly be true. But there it was, in all its glory.

"Together, pit bulls and Rottweilers account for half of the 4.7 million dog bites reported in the United States in 2011."

Wow. That's quite the statistic.

Well, after one of my fellow advocates did a little sluething, here is the source for this astounding statistic.

The first, the 4.7 million dog bites, is the per year estimate routinely given by the Center for Disease Control and Humane Society of the United States. The source for this is actually a study from 1994 in which they garnered national "statistics" from 5,300 phone interviews that not only had a small sample size but also just "made up" data for age groups that were not accounted for in the study. I don't necessarily fault the author of the article for not tracking down the source (I do fault the CDC and HSUS for repeating it for the past 2 decades as if it is a reliable stat), it is more than a little dishonest to attribute this estimated number, from a study done nearly 30 years ago, as the exact number of bites that happened in the specific year 2011.

Meanwhile, datapoint in the second part of the "statistic" is apparently Merritt Clifton's 30 year report on "maimings and maulings". Clifton's data has often come under scrutiny on this blog, and Luisa did magnificent work on this several years ago here, here and here. In this case, the source is a huge miss.

However, even if the data source wasn't bunk, the data she used isn't even related to the first data point. The Clifton Report that was cited featured 30 years worth of data, not one year. And the report never professed to cover all dog bites. At its best, it was only meant to cover the worst-of dog bites (at it's worst, it's completely flawed in both its methodology, its record-keeping, and being completely non-comprehensive).

So, instead, the author of the blog reported two pieces of information, that were not related in any way shape or form, one with data from the past 30 years, and one that was literally from 30 years ago, and tacked them together for one "statistic", for one year, in 2011.

It's wrong. And I believe done to be malicious, fear-monger, and drum up business.

Accuracy is important. And making up data to create fear-mongering is not accuracy. But unfortunately it does represent the world of made-up statistics that we live in.

November 19, 2012

"It was the government reacting ot a problem, and if you look at the numbers, it's been very effective," Stemple told mlive.

The ordinance, passed in June of 2011, required residents to register dogs whos breeds were deemed "dangerous" and post signs about a dog being on the premises and to keep their animals either leashed or within a 4 foot high fenced in area. The targeted breeds included 9 different breeds of dogs including pit bulls presa canario, bull mastiffs, Rottweilers and German Shepherds.

The law was passed after a series of incidents

According to Stemple, signs and tethering rules have made people safer. In 2009 there were 24 dog bites in the city. In 2011: 9. That seems impressive.

But have the results really been because of the ordinance? Or something else?

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Before I dive deeper into the numbers, I want to give you a feel for the community of Saginaw, MI.

The decline in population has created many other problems. By 2009, 56.6% of the city lived below the poverty line. Just under 25% lived with income less than 50% of the poverty line -- both well more triple the national averages. The city has a 15% unemployment rate.

With the poverty ha seen increased crime, in 1999, Saginaw had a crime index of 716 -- but by the end of 2008 this had grown to 1067. The national average is 319.

Because of the decreases in population, and increased poverty, the city finds itself very short of money. The annual budget has continued to decrease over time and now is not only supporting an infastructure built for nearly double the current population, but also suffering because nearly 30% of the total budget is being used to pay off past pensions.

I confess that I've never been to Saginaw, but I have been to similar places, and when poverty gets this high, and city budgets get this low, there is a significant break down in social structure and order -- which helps lead to the higher crime indices. There just isn't enough money to provide the city services the city should have.And while I can't seem to find the specific budget line items, I feel pretty safe in assuming that responding to loose animal complaints probably wasn't a high priority for Saginaw.

It is also pretty consistent that stray/loose animal issues, and aggressive dog issues, are fairly consistent with larger societal issues beyond just loose/dangerous dogs. They are usually a symptom ofa bigger problem.

So in March of 2009, it wouldn't be terribly surprising the city was in disarray. And at that point, a woman and a man were severely attacked by three free-roaming dogs in the community. This was only a few months after another incident in which two free-roaming dogs dug under a fence at a children's zoo and killed several farm animals.

It was at this time that the city began (rightfully) to look at animal control laws. After more than a year of discussion, the new law passed in June, 2011.

While I confess that I don't have a huge problem with the restrictions for the dog owners (a $20 licensing fee, plus containment are very good laws), the laws should be in place for ALL dog owners.

But that said, has the ordinance itself been effective? At least the way Inspector Stemple claims?

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Last week, in a separate story, mLive also posted the total numbers for 2009, 2010 and 2011 -- and YTD 2012. Here are a few of the raw numbers, some percentages that I've calculated, and then some thoughts:

Total Animal calls:

2009: 1,181

2010: 1,005 (-15%)

2011: 1,281 (+27%)

Jan-Aug 2012: 554 (831 for the year if all are averaged)

Vicious Dogs:

2009: 542

2010: 433 (-20%)

2011: 592 (+37%)

Jan-Aug 2012: 242 (363)

Bites

2009: 24

2010: 11 (-54%)

2011: 9 (-18%)

2012: 3 (5)

What is interesting about the numbers is that in 2010, the city saw significant decreases in incidents across the board -- 15% fewer calls, 20% fewer vicious dog calls and 54% fewer bites. While some of the "enforcement measures" went up in 2011 after the passing of the ordinance, bites continued to drop for 2011 and it appears the trend will continue in 2012.

First of all, this is great. I'm glad to see the bite numbers are dropping. People need to feel safe in their neighborhoods. However, the reduction in bites appears to have not be even correlated to the animal control ordinance.

While the ordinance was passed in mid 2011, the biggest reduction in bites came from 2009 to 2010 -- after the incident that sparked the discussion, but before the law was passed. I know this, a law passed in 2011 cannot be credited for a major reduction in dog bites that occurred the year prior. So something else led to the 54% decrease in bites in 2010. This likely had something to do with increased awareness of the impact free-roaming dogs can have in a community, as well as increased activity from local authorities in responding to complaints.

Then, the trend continued (to a lesser extent) in 2011 and 2012. However, the law cannot be attributed to the number of bites going from 24 to 9 in 2 years. At it's best, it can only be responsible for the drop from 11 to 9 in 2011. Again, the biggest dip happened before the law was passed.

And for what it's wroth, residents still aren't terribly happy with the law, as only 12% of the readers responded that dog breeds are dangerous, regardless of who owns them, while 59% say owners are responsible for their animal's behavior and 29% think the ordinance should apply to all dog owners, regardless of breed.

It's no surprise that the authorities in Saginaw are wanting to take credit for the law being a success. The law was very controversial at the time (still is) and they no doubt want to show it works. However, I'm disappointed that the media let them get by with it, and didn't ask the simple question -- what did you do differently in 2010 that accounted for the real reduction in dog bites? Because it wasn't because of the law.

September 25, 2012

A couple of weeks ago, I posted some commentary about how not all sources of information are created equal -- and that it is important for people to consider their source when it comes to deterimining the validity of that information.

Then, the conversation continued a bit over at Caveat and I had a small revelation that hit me - that, while small, and almost humorous in nature, it actually creates quite a problem for the opposition to Breed-specific laws (BSL).

Let's say the topic of BSL comes up in a community. A reporter is eager to get boths sides of the story so he starts making a few phone calls to local rescue groups, shelters, etc. The first couple of phone conversations to his local experts likely reveals that all are opposed to laws targeting specific breeds. Such laws are ineffective, create a false sense of security, and target the wrong end of the leash. Breed-neutral laws that focused on a dog's behavior, and responsible ownership, are more effective.

However, he still has to find a supporter of breed bans. Local phone calls have gotten him nowhere, so he has to do an internet search. The search leads him to a particular dogs bite website that claims to be a national authority on the topic (even though they have no expertise at all in actual animal behavior). So they get their quote. Both sides are represented.

Unfortunately, for many while both sides get their quotes, the sides aren't equally represented. The anti-BSL group has many supporters, including everyone locally. The pro-BSL group has one supporter, from several states away. Unfortunately, both sides get equal airtime. And unfortunately, often times the general population sees the national organization as being a higher authority than the local groups. No one is ever smarter it seems than the out-of-town 'expert'.

And so the pro BSL side gets a slight advantage in the world of public opinion.

Such has been the case in Vancouver over the past couple of weeks. In a column.

On September 13, the a Vancouver Sun editorial writer wrote an editorial in favor of breed-specific laws. He, of course, didn't consider his sources, and posted a lot of inaccurate gibberish. You can pretty much tell something is going to be gibberish the second they start comparing dogs to bears or when they refer to people who oppose breed bans as the "attack dog lobby". Um, yeah.

It's pretty amazing that you have dozens of national organizations of trainers, rescue groups, dog handlers, animal control officers, veterinarians, etc -- and most don't agree on much of anything - -but the one thing they do all agree on, is that breed-specific laws are not the answer. And because of that, all of these groups are now somehow considered to be some sort of conspiracy lobbying group. Yip.

So, the local experts, talk back. Including this very nicely written letter by Kathy Powelson, the Executive Director of the local Paws for Hope Animal Foundation. Now, I don't know Kathy, but she sounds like a very knowledgable person when it comes to animal handling and canine laws - -and has a title (not just a website) that would help prove that.Kathy points out that most of the evidence presented in the original editorial is from unaccredited, unreliable sources (and she's right).

Maybe my favorite piece of this is that dogsbite.org founder Colleen Lynn then writes defending her own credentials. Folks, if the only person that comes to your defense and defends you as a credible source is you, you may have a problem.

Let me be perfectly clear - the evidence is overwhelmingly opposed to breed-specific laws and there is a completely lack of expert and professional support for such laws. And the local experts are generally the local experts that have the higher authority with their hands on experience with animals.